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Christmas book

How Santa Really Works

Its that time of the year again when all of the Christmas books are dusted down and re read.This one is a bit different in that it is less of a story but rather presents itself almost as a non fiction book.The book has a large annotated picture of Santa Claus on the front with labels such as child snore locator, reindeer treats, seasonal jollity indicator. The fact that the labels are quite amusing and Santa so jolly looking means that it highly likely to catch a child's eye. The blurb on the back of the book is also likely to interest a child, as the autor is described as someone who has travelled through Lapland and who has found the bustling community with a mission to make Christmas happen. It is when living with this community that he found out the answers to the Santa Claus questions which we all want to know.

The book asks a series of questions such as: Where does santa live?; How Does santa know what you want?; Where are all the toys made?; What time does Santa come? The questions are all answered in a series of short comments with lots of cartoon like illustrations, which are very busy and so there is plenty for children to look at and to comment on.

There are also double page spreads with these cartoon pictures taking up the whole two pages, which are quite amusing and almost tell a story on their own. As well as there being lots of pictures, there are pages with writing and smaller pictures such as in the chapter Christmas Day. This gives more confident readers the chance to read the answers to the questions and if children are not yet competent readers they can have the text read to them.

VERDICT...

The book certainly does cover lots of questions children may ask about Santa Claus and in a colourful and humorous way. The book is set out so that there are lots of pictures with text in small sections so that children don't get bogged down with the reading; it's a fun book, not a reading book.The book is suitable for Key Stage 1 children but because of the nature of the writing and the type of pictures, I would say that it is more suitable for children who are fairly confident readers so that they can use the book as more of a reference book to answer all of their questions.